I started writing the below post 28th Dec 2019 but then got sidetracked and am only now getting back to it.  I thought at the time of writing the below things were quieting down regarding the fire emergency, but I was wrong!  In the days following the below the fire emergency got so much worse.  New Years Eve we were planning on having a party but it never eventuated.  People were out fire fighting, looking after relatives and the smoke haze at that time was incredible and after seeing the devastation going on we didn’t really feel like celebrating.  This continued right up until the weekend of the 8th of February when it rained.  This was the first serious rain we have had since early in 2019.  Once this rain came many of the fires around us were extinguished or at least contained.

It’s amazing what that rain did for everyone.  After months of dealing with not only the fires themselves but the subsequent stress of living “on the edge” for a period of time the rain gave some release from all that.  Everyone’s mood was much happier.

The change in the landscape was noticeable after just a few days.  We did experience some flooding but it wasn’t for too long and it was actually quite nice to see.  Some rivers and creeks that hadn’t been flowing for some time were now raging torrents and the fields and bushland started to turn bright green, they had been brown and dry for so long.

We have certainly experienced plenty of different weather in the past few months – we had snow in September 19, heatwaves and fires from November to January 20 and then flooding in February 20.

Like I said the below was written some time ago and my mood was very different at that time but it still reflects our feelings so I haven’t changed it from the original.

Original Post

As everyone will agree, this year has flown by.  Christmas has come and gone and Wiggy has had her 14th birthday (27th Dec).  We both cannot believe that she is 14 already.  It feels like we crammed as much as we could into 2019.  We worked so hard on the property, the girls had another great year at school and we even managed to fit in an overseas holiday to Singapore.

We’ve mentioned some of the projects we have worked on in previous blogs but one we just finished before Christmas was the installation of solar panels.  In our quest to be more self sufficient we have been planning to have solar panels installed since we moved but we have only just got around to doing it.  With the number of trees we have on the property  the challenge for us was to find a spot which was facing North and wasn’t impacted by shade from the trees at anytime throughout the day.  In the end we had them mounted on the horse stable in the a field about 100m from the house.  This shed has no trees around it at all and faces directly North.  We were lucky that near the stables was a disused power pole that was still connected to the main lines that we could use.  This helped us overcome the distance issue.  We have not installed batteries with the solar panels as yet but the plan is to do this in the future.  The system we installed is “battery ready” so having them connected shouldn’t be too much of an issue.

Ironically the installation of the solar panels coincided with some very hot weather and while this was great for power generation it was a nightmare from a bushfire point of view.  Early in December a fire started near us in the Tallaganda National Park.  The fire was believed to have been started by a lightning strike.  This became the North Black Range fire.  We learnt about the fire via the Rural Fire Service app Fires Near me.  Given this was our first experience with a bushfire that could directly impact us we initially took it all pretty easy.  But a day or two after it started we started getting warnings about our particular suburb and the fire itself grew very quickly.  Everything then escalated very quickly and areas all around the town of Braidwood were being impacted by this fire.  Like most people we saw the devastation caused by the fires in northern NSW earlier on but its always different when it is right on your doorstep.  The below picture is early on when the fire started to approach our area and really started to get out of control.

If you look carefully you can see a house in the background of the above picture (back towards the left).  Thats the house you can see in the below picture about a week later when the fire was really getting dangerous for us.

In the end through the efforts of the RFS and all the other volunteers and pure luck the fire didn’t get to our place.  We were packed and ready to leave and we were in this state of flux for almost three weeks, constantly check on the fires progress, checking the weather and making plans of what to do.  Throughout this time school was being cancelled due to the fire so the girls were at home and a number of days and nights I was out with the RFS fighting the fires.  So many people donate their time, goods, money, machinery etc to help at times like this.  This is my first “real” fire that I have attended with the RFS and it’s an eye opener.  You learn alot about the community and how they pull together when needed.  We had people calling us offering to take our animals, people calling giving us advice on the very bad weather days (“maybe you should get out today, the weather is terrible”).  At the main fire control centre there were dozens of volunteers making food packs for firies to take out, there were companies donating their catering capabilities to provide breakfasts, lunches and dinners as crews were working around the clock.  It’s just amazing to think that it’s a volunteer organisation, the RFS, and the people you are working with are neighbours and friends and many are out fighting fires while their own homes are at risk.  I volunteered where I could, trying to balance work, home and the need to help out (especially when it’s in your backyard) but there are guys I know who have been out every second day (or more ) for weeks on end.  These men and women are just incredible.

As I said we were lucky, some of our friends had the fire at their door, literally, and their homes only survived through the efforts of them, the volunteers and the organizations tasked with dealing with the fires.  In our area one home was lost which meant hundreds were saved.  That was just incredible.  Other areas of NSW suffered so much worse.

It’s no coincidence that it seems like the whole east of NSW  is on fire.  The conditions are so dry, and have been for so long now, that these sorts of issues were expected.  We haven’t had any decent rain at our place for a few months now and all the rivers and creeks around our area are dry or at best no longer flowing.  This is because the inflows over the past few years has been so low that we are finally getting to the end of the supply, nothing coming in and the same amount going out can only be sustained for so long.

I’m definitely no expert on climate patterns or climate science but I’m smart enough to know this – things have changed.  What I’m seeing now is different to what I’m used to.  An example is what I learnt being out with the RFS.  There were much more experienced firefighters saying that the state of the bush is different meaning that the fire is behaving differently.  Things they expected to happen don’t happen and vice versa.  Rivers that have never run dry in living memory have run dry.  Locals that have been in our area for generations are now seeing things they haven’t seen before.  I can’t say that things like fossils fuels or other “climate issues” are to blame or anything like that because I just don’t have all the facts but I do believe that we, the human race, have changed the environment around us.  Given how many of us there are an our wide ranging impact how can this not be the case?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m no activist and how can I be as I haven’t done all that I could or can be doing but we are making efforts to be better at what we do.  We are also researching more and more on this subject to ensure we have a wide range of information to help us make decisions on where to focus our efforts.  My advice would be (if you are interested) is to research enough to form your own opinion, don’t just take the  news that pops up in your news feed as the only viable option.  Research alternative theories and research, and balance that against who is writing it and why.  Here are a couple of different articles that I have read over the past few days that I thought were interesting.

Australia’s Big Smoke

Capitalism & Ecocide

I think we are at the time where we need to start to think differently!

Spring where we live now is such a good season.  It’s mild days mixed with some still cold days but the general feeling is the days are getting longer and warmer.

To highlight how different the days can be see the below photos.  The first one is of the snow we received mid September.  It was so awesome to wake up to snow falling and to see all the fields with a good covering of snow.  In the two and half years we have been here we have had light snow/sleet but nothing like this at home.  I woke up as usual and was headed to the gym only to open the door and find snow everywhere.  The evening before we had some much needed rain so we expected it to be wet, but some time during the night the rain turned to snow.  I thought about just finishing my work out and then waking everyone up but I was worried that it may melt away if it started raining heavy again.  So I went back in an woke wifey and she went and got the girls up.  I have never seen them get up at 5:30am as well as they did this day!  They were out of bed and out the back door in no time with huge smiles on their faces.  They built a snowman and got the boogie board out and slid down the snow covered hills.

The photo below is less than a week later on a ride around the local roads. A perfect riding day.  As you can see you get a mixed bag when it comes to the weather at this time of the year but it makes it interesting!  Looking at these photos and writing this makes me remember why we like where we live now so much – close to the snow fields, close to the south coast beaches with plenty of bushland and national parks for exploring. And not forget some great riding roads.

With it being spring time we have also been working hard on our veggie garden.  As I mentioned previously we are trying to implement some farming practices that will help us improve the land that we have while growing enough food for ourselves.  The first step of this is to create a decent sized veggie garden.  In the end we created one single area/structure that incorporated a chicken coop, a greenhouse and the garden itself.  That way we can use the chickens to help with the gardening.  We’ve also moved our beehive into this area and planted a number of flowering plants to help attract bees.

With the weather still being unpredictable we can’t just go and plant without some consideration to the possibility of some further heavy frosts.  Hence the tunnelling system you can see in the picture.  This will help the seedlings get going and protect them from any frosts that may come as well as the strong winds we have.

Through the courses I have done and the materials we have collected we were able to plan out what to plant at this time of the year, for our particular climate.  We are taking an intensive planting approach which means planting a number of different, but complementary, plants together.  That way we get can get the most out of our patch.  This does take a bit of planning as you need to understand what can be planted with what (and more importantly what cannot be planted with something) as well as how big the plant will grow and the time to harvest.  The idea is that you mix fast growing with slower growing and tall plants with shorter ones so they all have space to grow and you maximise the harvest.

Learning about all the aspects of planning a garden is like being at school again.  There is so much to learn and everyone has an idea, opinion or suggestion.  There is a lot to take in.  We’ve planted small gardens before with mainly herbs that were in hindsight, very simple and easy to maintain but not on the scale we are looking at now and they were in a much more moderate climate.  Not that it’s hard,  just takes some research and then planning so that you set yourselves up for the best possible outcomes and we are really enjoying the challenge (so far!).

So on our starting veggie list is – Beetroot, Spring Onions, Lettuce, Cucumber, Zucchini, Tomato, Carrots, Eggplant, Capsicum, Brussel Sprouts, Potatoes and herbs – Sage Oregano, Basil, Parsley and Coriander.   We also need to order a swarm of bees for the hive.  That will be interesting!

But all of this will have to wait another 2 weeks as its school holidays and Wifey has organised a holiday for us, can’t wait!

 

There has been a lot happening (which seems to always be the case!) since we last wrote.  But there have been a couple of significant things that have come off over the last few weeks.  Firstly, we completed our “bike shed”.  We had been thinking about options to give ourselves more room.  We thought about an extension on the house and options like that but in the end we decided to build another shed.

When we moved to this property, we had a shed built which has our gym area as well as storage for some of our bikes (the other bikes were stored in a shed/garage that was already here when we moved in).  The intention with the new shed was to move all the bikes into this shed giving us more space in the other areas.

Yes, I know there are a lot of sheds so to make it easier let me name them – the new shed being built we’ll call the “bike shed”, the shed we had built when we moved in we’ll call the “gym” and the shed/garage that was here when we moved in we’ll call “the garage”.  There is also a machine shed/stable on another part of the property, we’ll call that “the stables”, that’s not important now but will be to the other significant happening!!

So, in May this year we began building the bike shed.  We used our regular builder who has done other sheds for us in the past.  He does such a great job we didn’t even look at anyone else and while we tackle almost all the projects ourselves this one is just too big to do, especially when you only have weekends (well Sundays really!).  And with the wind that we get here you really need these built well and he knows what he is doing in that area.  The build took longer than expected due to a litany of reasons/issues (mostly out of everyone’s control) but it’s finally complete.  The build completion has coincided with me having some time between contracts, so I have been able to spend a lot of time setting up the bike shed as well as making changes to the gym and the garage to give us the space we were after.

The shed on the left in the below photo is the bike shed, the one on the right is the gym (the view is awesome from this angle as well).  So, all the bikes moved into the bike shed and the plan for the gym was to leave the gym area and with the rest of the space to build our girls a music room.

 

To get the gym ready for the girls we lined the walls, installing some extra insulation.  We then laid some carpet and rugs down and put in a corner lounge with fold out bed.  Many times, when the girls have friends over, they would sleep out in the gym so now they have a better sleeping option with the fold out.  All their musical instruments are now out there including the piano.  They are both loving their space.

I have wanted to dedicated bike shed for a long time now but it’s always seemed nothing more than a dream.  Living in Sydney there was no chance of getting one and even on the farm now it seemed that there were too many other things that needed to be done.  But we’ve been able to come up with some ideas that met our family needs and I am lucky enough to get a bike shed!

Below is a picture of the bike shed, setup with all our memorabilia and the like on the walls.  The picture was taken using the panoramic option on my phone so it looks a bit weird, but it gives an end to end view.  I can’t stop smiling when I look at this picture.

The other big piece of news is the Wiggy and Buddy have welcomed a new friend – Max

Max came from friend of ours and the girls are so excited.  They have been working at or going to Saddle Camp since we moved here, and they have learnt so much Helen the owner.  Which is great because wifey and I know absolutely nothing about horses!  Max had been in a paddock for some time, so the girls took their time getting him used to our place as well as again having the headcollar, bridle, lead rope etc on.  Now they can sit on him while the other leads him around to get him used to being ridden again.  He seems to be such a gentle guy and I think he loves all the attention he is getting now.

As I mentioned earlier, we already have stables, but one stable is where the tractor is parked and the other, we converted into chicken coop, not expecting that we would need it for a horse.  We mentioned in our last post that we are looking an growing our own food so to get this going we had plans for a new chicken coop attached to a greenhouse and veggie garden.  But now the girls are telling me Max needs a stable, so the chickens need a new home.  I guess that’s the next thing on our to do list!

Well it has been a while.  Keeping up writing this blog has been challenging.  It would be easy to say I (we’ve) been too busy but that’s just an excuse.  We didn’t give it the time and focused on other things.  And plenty has been happening!

After our trip at Christmas (yes, it’s been that long since we wrote) we quickly slotted back into everyday “country” life.  Our daughters Wiggy and Buddy headed back to school and have been doing amazingly well.  They were totally awesome through the sporting season – swimming, athletics, cross country etc. and have been doing well with their external activities as well (Hapkido, Music and horses).  Wiggy is in her second year of high school now so is starting to find the workload increase but she has been doing a great job of dealing with all that.  They both have part time jobs working at the Saddle Camp (saddlecamp.com.au just in case you are down this way😊) which they love.

Wifey has also been going well and working hard at her two roles which has meant that she has more than a full time position.  Sadly, with this and my work our Friday pub lunches has become a thing of the past (for now at least).

It’s been two years since I started working for myself and it’s (so far) gone well.  I started a contract straight after Christmas which finished in June and it looks like some strong possibilities for a couple of other contracts coming up July/August.  I’ve earnt some decent money and the contracts I have had have given more flexibility on where and how many days I work.  So, I couldn’t ask for more at this point.  But the current gap between gigs has given me sometime to work on the farm and the projects we have on our to do list.

Since Christmas we have had plenty of these projects completed, underway or in the planning stage.  Firstly, we finished off our area around the Spa – this included building a new deck and a Pergola over the deck and Spa.  We were so pleased with how this turned out, we think it looks fantastic and we have been using the Spa at least twice a week since then and yes, even lately when the temperature has been constantly below zero.  In fact, our standard Friday routine now is – come home from work, grab a few drinks and head for the Spa.  Usually it’s just wifey and me as the girls I think are relishing the chance to be inside and do what they want.  We’ve also dubbed this day “feed yourself Friday”.  As we are in the Spa most of the evening and the girls doing their thing, if anyone wants dinner, they have to make their own.

I’m still working on restoring a 1974 Suzuki motorcycle for wifey.  I’ve made some great progress the past few weeks but prior to that this bike suffered (like the Blog) from neglect, mostly due to work commitments.  But its now almost all back together and I have a list of parts I need that are missing or damaged that I need to find.  Most will have to come from overseas so not much will happen till after they get here.

We’ve also been working a lot on improving the infrastructure on the farm.  Water has been scarce with the drought, we had good rain Dec, Jan and Feb this year but since then its been back to nothing much at all, so we’ve increased our storage capacity so when it does rain we can capture about 3 times what we could when we first moved in.  Related to this we’ve also worked on getting water to our animals and fields so that they have water all the time.  In some fields we have been having to manually fill up troughs with water every few days but now we have a system in place that provides water to these fields automatically.  We are in the midst of building a new shed for all our bikes, it has taken longer than expected but it should be completed soon, and it will provide another building to capture rain water off – as well as being and awesome bike and bike related place.

The reason we have been working on farm infrastructure is because we want to really start to use the land we have to provide food for ourselves.  In researching what we could do have heard a lot of people talk about being self-sustainable, we’ve heard talk about organic, biological, biodynamic farming as well as whole of farm approaches like permaculture.  It can get a bit confusing but we intend to focus on a whole of farm approach where we manage all the resources we have to provide food but also to ensure that the resources we have are renewed and the approach is sustainable and eventually it betters the land rather than being detrimental to it.  When I read this is sounds a bit “greenie” but I’ve seen examples of people providing food for themselves (and others) while improving their land, water etc. and caring for their local environmental in general.  It seems like the right thing to do and we are going it give it a crack!  So, first thing on our list is to build a decent vegie garden, including a greenhouse.  Once we have that going, we are going look at more animals (pigs, sheep or goats) and using these to help improve the pastures we have.  We will let you know how it goes!

As you can imagine the time over Christmas was pretty busy so today I will give you a quick summary of the past few days (and using some more photos). They seem to have gone by in a flash.

We arrived in Harrisville Christmas Eve and spent the evening there with family and friends. It’s always great there. We played pool ate way too much and just relaxed. I carried out some minor repairs on the Ural as well while we had the time.

The Christmas lights in the house we stayed at were amazing.

From here we travelled into Brisbane for Christmas Day. It’s only a short ride to a family breakfast/lunch. It’s always a great day here and again there was so much food! The girls had fun and we caught up with people we haven’t seen for a few years.

In the afternoon of Christmas Day we head off to our accommodation for the night. We stayed at the Sea World resort on the Gold Coast. As soon as we arrived the girls hit the pool and we relaxed after a long day. On Boxing day we caught up with a friend of mine I’ve known since school. So good catching up and amazing to have friends for that long.

Later that day we hit the theme park itself. It’s my favourite park on the Gold Coast because you get to see all the sea life and animals, rather than just the rides. Wifey took Wiggy for on her first roller coaster and she loved it. And then both of them and buddy tried the jet boat ride (sort of like a roller coaster but not too high off the ground). Her face when she got off was priceless😅.

The next day (27th) is Wiggy’s birthday. We opened presents, had a buffet breakfast and then jumped on the bikes again for our next stop. It was an action packed couple of days but we had so much fun.

Today was a tough day. The weather was quite hot and the holiday traffic was at its worst. Now, I don’t mean Sydney type traffic because we were still in the middle of nowhere but the route we took is a road many travellers from Victoria and South Australia use to get to Nth New South Wales or Queensland.

The road it’s self is pretty boring, long and straight and it’s 110km/h road so everyone was flying along, except us! The Ural cruises well at about 90km/h. That made for some “interesting” times as, like I said, everyone seemed to be in a hurry. We did seem some instances of Karma in effect which made us smile 😀 though. It’s actually one of the great things about the Ural, it’s a different type of riding. Because it’s a slower ride it changes your mindset from “how can I get there as quickly as I can” to “well I know I can’t go quick so I will just sit back and enjoy the ride!”.

First stop today was Narrabri which is a large country town. It’s a big cotton growing area so the land is flat for as far as you can see. From there it was onto Moree which is a similar sized town and again it’s a big cotton growing region and is well known for its Artesian hot spring baths.

Little buddy and wig have really been enjoying their time on the Ural. They are so comfortable now that they both fell asleep in the sidecar this trip. We have Bluetooth headsets fitted to our helmets so we can talk to each other but we rarely do, everyone puts on their own music playlist and chills out.

We crossed the border into Queensland and landed in Goondiwindi (after passing the statue of Gunsynd – the Goondiwindi Grey!) mid afternoon and we all hit the pool as soon as we could and that’s where we stayed the rest of the afternoon. A relaxing finish to a long but fun day. From here we head to Harrisville where we are staying with family for Christmas Eve.

After a rest day in Cowra where we had some of the best steaks ever (from local farms of course) we were back on the road today. We headed from Cowra to Coonabarabran. That’s about 350km. The weather was perfect for riding today, about 26°c and sunny. We travelled on some great bike roads, Oxley Hwy, Newell Hwy and Castlereagh Hwy.

Both Wig and Buddy are getting very comfy on the Ural, both feel asleep in the sidecar today!

We’ve tried to stop as often as possible to have a look around the local towns. First up today was Molong (whose name is Aboriginal for All Rocks). It’s a nice quiet town and very friendly, several people came up to us as soon as we got off the bikes to say hello and they weren’t just looking at the Ural!

Then we headed to Wellington which is the second oldest European settlement in New South Wales and was discovered by John Oxley in 1817.

Next on the trip was Dunedoo, which we think is most famous just for its name!

Our over night stay tonight is in Coonabarabran (Aboriginal for inquisitive person) which is in the Warrumbungle region. It’s known as the “star gazing ” capital of Australia. It’s located on an ancient volcanic mountain range. It’s Australia’s only “dark sky park” and the observatory is open 24 hours a day. We are learning heaps about the towns along the way.

Some of the scenery is amazing, it’s hard sometimes to keep your eyes on the road!

Tomorrow we head to Goondiwindi which means we leave New South Wales and end up in QLD. Hopefully another great day!

Well today was the first day of the Blinco Road Trip. In total we are riding from home to Brisbane (QLD) and back. The complete trip will be around 2300km. Wig, Buddy and I will be in the Ural and Wifey on her Honda.

Don’t you love the matching gear bag on the Ural, wifey couldn’t have anything less.

Today we went from home to Cowra, in central NSW. It’s about 280km so a nice easy day to start. Plenty of great little towns along the way – Murrumbateman, then into Boorowa and then to Cowra.

We had a little bit of freeway riding but most of it was country back roads and most of those were pretty empty. Luckily, because with the Ural packed up with wig and buddy and all our gear the going is not quick!

What did we notice the most on our first day today? – it’s hot out here. We have become accustomed to the more mild climate of home so 38°c gets your attention! The girls also said they noticed the smell of all the roadkill. When it’s this hot dead things really stink!

Tomorrow is a rest day, will explain why later but that has turned out to be a good thing as the Urals’ speedo stopped working about half through today. Not that I had to worry about breaking the speed limit (there is no chance of that) it’s more keeping track of how many kilometres we’ve done so I know how much fuel we’ve used. So tomorrow I will be working on that while he girls relax around the pool. Hopefully I get get that working and the Ural stays together for the rest of the trip!

We’ve been a bit slack in keeping the blog up to date, we’ve just been focused on other things and haven’t made the time.  Not that there isn’t a lot going on, we’ve just been slack.  Since our last entry a couple of months ago we’ve gone from the middle to winter to late spring.  This was our second winter in Braidwood and by the numbers it was as cold as our first year, but we all seemed to cope a lot better.  Maybe we made better clothing choices, maybe we worked out how to get the most out of the wood fire, maybe we had acclimatised or maybe we just nutted up (probably a combination of all of these) but whatever the reason we enjoyed our second winter down here.  There were still plenty of cold days, one day I rode to work at -8⁰c (which gets your attention) and there were plenty of days well in the negative, but it just seemed we’d work out how to make the most of it.

Now that spring has hit we have been lucky enough to see some rain, after a very dry winter, which has given our paddocks a helping hand and there is some nice growth coming through for our steers.  It has been a very tough period for the farmers in our area.  The state of some of the cattle on neighbouring farms is heartbreaking.  We’ve seen many that just didn’t have the strength to stand any longer and once they sit down, they can’t get back up and it’s all downhill from there.  Generally, they don’t get back up again.  The drought is really hitting these people and their animals hard.  Most farmers were hand feeding their animals but even that became an issue as stocks of Hay/Lucerne just ran out. There were two or three months were the rural produce stores in Braidwood couldn’t even buy any feed.  Let’s hope we get some more rain over the coming months although the long-term forecast isn’t looking great.

Both our girls have been going great, they have so many friends and they are still doing almost as many sports/activities as they did in Sydney.  People still ask us how the girls are going, and our answer is we really couldn’t see them moving back to the city anytime soon.  Our eldest daughter (Wiggy) maybe would move back if we had to, but our youngest (Buddy) has just fit into farm life so well there is no way she would move back.  Even when we go back to Sydney for a day she complains about being there, so we have tried to not go back unless we really must.  One difference we’ve noticed since moving here is that the girls have way more sleep overs than they had in Sydney.  It’s probably because everyone is so far away that no one comes just to say “hi”.

Wifey has started working full time at the local school which is about as good a job that you can get in a small town like ours.  It’s her first full time job in several years and she is really enjoying the work she does and the people she is working with.   She will continue to teach swimming in the afternoons and is also President of the local swim club.  It’s great to see her busy doing things she likes.  I was hoping that with her being so busy that she would have less time to come up with jobs for me to do, but that hasn’t happened!

On my work front I’m still lucky enough that working for myself is still going well.  The original consulting contract has just kept extending and I’ve been able to negotiate not having to work in Sydney any longer.  I work 2 days a week at home and two days a week in Canberra (which is about an hour-15 from home) so much better than traveling to Sydney. I’ve also been lucky enough to pick up one day a week consulting in our local town.  It’s a double edge sword, I miss my 4 day working weeks, but I couldn’t pass up the chance to work so local (there aren’t many opportunities for that given the work that I do).

On the home front we’ve learnt so much about living on a farm, we’ve learnt lot’s about looking after our animals, we’ve learnt about fixing/building fences (include putting up an electric fence), dealing with Wombats, Kangaroos, Rabbits, Foxes, Feral Cats, Snakes etc, growing plants, veggie gardens and the list goes on.  It feels like we’ve learnt so much but there is obviously plenty more to go.  We still have a few projects on the go – I’m rebuilding a bike for wifey (1974 Suzuki TS100), more fencing work (lots more fencing work), we are building a new entertainment area at the front of the house including a Spa for wifey and we have a new tractor arriving any day now.  Once the tractor arrives the to do list is about to get a lot longer!  The deal was if I get a new tractor wifey gets a new Spa – seems fair to me!  Keep an eye on Instagram for some pictures on all of these.

This year has flown by and for Christmas we’ve planned a big trip on the bikes.  Wiggy and Buddy will come with me on the Ural and wifey will follow us on her bike. We can’t wait, should be quite the adventure.

 

So, last night we were discussing whose turn it was to blog, I thought it was hubbies, but he thought it was mine. So – my turn it is!

I have to say,  we have picked the best place to live.  Last weekend we took the girls snowboarding for the day.  Yes, just the day!

We are about 2 and a half hours from the ski fields.  We got up normal time for us and hit the road, dressed for a day falling and sliding down a snowy,  wet hill.

I could not wait, it has been so long since I went boarding.  I was hoping that the kids and hubby would love it like I did.  You forget the shrill screams of excitement as kids forget their inside voice and burst out with “SNOW look SNOW, more snow on my side” Yes, this is the first time the girls have ever seen real snow.  It did sleet a few weeks ago in Braidwood, but not real snow. This was REAL snow.  It made us smile how excited they girls were.

We pulled up at Selwyn, it was cold, and raining when we arrived, but they girls burst out of the car with as much excitement as when they saw the snow out the window, the rain was not going to stop them.  We bought our passes and some lessons for the girls and headed to the top of the beginners slope.  Snowboards have change heaps since I was last at the snow. We worked out the new bindings and off we went, a whole 1m before BANG crashing to the ground.  I couldn’t remember how to do it!  Wig and Bud were off and they got almost half way down before they crashed.   It took me three or four runs before it started to come back to me.

The girls had such a great time and didn’t want to go home at the end of the day.  And to be honest, so did hubby and I.  It was such great fun.

Bruised, battered and exhausted we piled into the car and drove home, happy to crawl into bed and sleep.

We are already planning our next trip!

Can you believe that we are 1 hour from beautiful golden, sandy beaches and 2 hours from the snow, what an awesome place to live!